The present invention relates to an apparatus intended to be placed in supermarkets and in other similar points of sale to dispense one at a time plastic bags unwound from a reel, open them and keep them open below a mouth through which the customer of the supermarket may insert in the bag the purchased items that must be taken away, after having registered their characteristics and cost by means of a scanner connected to such apparatus by a computer.
It is known that recently in supermarkets, and in other similar points of sale, devices have been introduced to dispense plastic bags to the customers and allow them to easily insert in such bags, kept open by the device, the purchased items normally paid to the check-out counter. Devices of this kind are described for instance in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/613234 filed by the same applicatant.
Such prior devices have no instrument to verify the characteristics and price of the purchased items so their use is solely limited to the packaging of the purchased goods. Thus they may be used only downstream the check-out counters of the supermarkets and therefore they do not contribute to reduce the time that cashiers need to register the goods purchased by each customer.